Transatlantica Revue d’études américaines. American Studies Journal 2 | 2017 (Hi)stories of American Women: Writings and Re- writings / Call and Answer: Dialoguing the American West in France ‘Tis not time to part! French historians of the American Revolution: An interview with Bernard Cottret Ghislain Potriquet Electronic version URL: https://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/9887 DOI: 10.4000/transatlantica.9887 ISSN: 1765-2766 Publisher Association française d'Etudes Américaines (AFEA) Electronic reference Ghislain Potriquet, “‘Tis not time to part! French historians of the American Revolution: An interview with Bernard Cottret”, Transatlantica [Online], 2 | 2017, Online since 19 May 2019, connection on 20 May 2021. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/transatlantica/9887 ; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/ transatlantica.9887 This text was automatically generated on 20 May 2021. Transatlantica – Revue d'études américaines est mise à disposition selon les termes de la licence Creative Commons Attribution - Pas d'Utilisation Commerciale - Pas de Modification 4.0 International. ‘Tis not time to part! French historians of the American Revolution: An inter... 1 ‘Tis not time to part! French historians1 of the American Revolution: An interview2 with Bernard Cottret3 Ghislain Potriquet Ghislain Potriquet: Would you please outline your academic background and university career? Bernard Cottret: I was a boarder at the lycée4 Chaptal in Paris for two years in 1969-1971; my family lived in Morocco at the time. I rediscovered Paris, where I had spent the first few years of my life between Notre-Dame and Saint-Germain-des-Prés. May 68 was still on the minds of all my fellow students though my half provincial, half post-colonial upbringing had kept me away from the turmoil. I could never become an acceptable, convincing left-wing radical, though I tried on several occasions. I attended a classe préparatoire aux grandes écoles5. We were taught all sorts of subjects there: from French literature and philosophy to history and geography, along with English and German, of course. Then, I was admitted to the École Normale Supérieure de Saint-Cloud6. I passed the agrégation7 in English in 1976. The following year, I fulfilled my military obligation as a linguist and interpreter. I left the army as a second lieutenant in the French reserve. I then taught in a high school for a few years and in 1981, I was appointed Assistant professor at the Sorbonne (Université Paris IV), the year Mitterrand was elected President of the French Republic (a mere coincidence!). I published a few books and articles on English history and completed a PhD on Lord Bolingbroke, one of the founders of early-modern Toryism in the eighteenth century and one of the first exponents of the “one-country” tradition that was later taken up by Disraeli. In 1988, I was promoted to a full professorship at the Université Lille III. In 1992, I was asked to head a multidisciplinary department of humanities in a new Transatlantica, 2 | 2017 ‘Tis not time to part! French historians of the American Revolution: An inter... 2 university, the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin, located 15 miles southwest of Paris. I worked there until 2011, when I retired with relief to live in the country. GP: What were your initial research interests? BC: Earlier on, while working on my Master’s dissertation devoted to a talented Irish bishop and his views of Providence (what a topic!), I developed an interest in comparative history. I needed a topic that would bring together the histories of France and England in the early modern period; the immigration of French Protestants would let me examine comparatively the social questions raised by immigration over several centuries, including our own (that is, the difference between economic migrants and asylum seekers, also known as “refugees”: this word was first used at that time…). But my idea was met with skepticism: in the 1970s, in the French academic system, “English studies” chiefly meant “English literature”. I was told that the immigration of Huguenots to England would be suitable only if studied through novels. But since no such novels were available, I moved on to another topic: Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke proved an excellent choice, for he had authored a series of essays on history, politics and natural religion. Having made friends with Voltaire and Swift, who named his horse “Bolingbroke”, the English viscount was acceptable for literary scholars. I spent some ten years of my life with his lordship; we got on well at the end, I liked his sense of humor and he was delighted to see that I could give a fair appraisal of his painful, irritating evolution from Tory to Jacobite, then from Jacobite to Patriot… not to mention his reputation as a rake and libertine! However, when asked: “what is the subject of your thesis?” my answer would be adapted to the person who asked the question. I would tell historians like Robert Mandrou, Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie, Lawrence Stone or Maurice Agulhon: “I am working on Huguenot migrations to England”. They would understand my topic and its interest immediately. But when asked by somebody else, I would throw in, looking as convinced as I could: “Bolingbroke, Bolingbroke, of course”! In 1985, my study of the Huguenots in England came out as Terre d’Exil; three years later I defended my doctoral dissertation on Bolingbroke. Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie chaired the very formal viva which took place in grand style at Nanterre University (Université Paris X), a few days before Christmas. So from the late 1970s onward, things started to change: our English and American studies departments gradually opened to historians. André Kaspi and Élise Marienstras were pioneers in this regard. Many historians now work in departments of English studies (historians of the United States, in particular). I consider this to be a very positive evolution. Let me add that throughout my career, I have enjoyed an excellent relationship with other historians, regardless of their institutional, let alone their denominational, affiliations. I believe that French historians of the British Isles or the United States are key cultural intermediaries in English departments. Conversant in two languages and histories, they are in a unique position to provide the French public with the conceptual tools necessary for the understanding of distinct cultures. And the history of English-speaking countries had now become fully integrated to university curricula. I use “history”, instead of the French word “civilisation”8 which might as Transatlantica, 2 | 2017 ‘Tis not time to part! French historians of the American Revolution: An inter... 3 well refer to cultural studies. I keep repeating that “civilization should also be civilized”; most of my colleagues now seem to agree! I would add that a book by a French historian on a given topic in English history will necessarily be different from a book written by an English historian on the same subject. And this is a very good thing! We need such historians: they make it possible for distinct publics to communicate across languages and cultures. Also, French publishers will tell you that the translation of books authored by English or American historians do not necessarily “meet their public” as they put it, tongue-in-cheek. GP: How does your history of the American Revolution (La Révolution américaine) relate to your previous books on Calvin and the Reformation? BC: My relationship to Protestant history is quite complex. I have written a bestselling biography of John Calvin which was translated into several languages, including English of course, but I have never believed there was such a thing as “Protestant” or, for that matter, “Catholic history”. History should always remain objective and secular in its approach. I wrote my history of the American Revolution at a time when I distanced myself from the intolerable bigotry that prevailed among some Protestants. As I once said to an evangelical friend: Marx has freed me from religion and Calvin has liberated me from Marx. My interest in Protestantism as a scholarly topic was also linked to the tercentennial anniversary of the Edict of Nantes. It was a stimulating intellectual context. How does one bring a civil war to an end? In the 1990s, this question was highly topical: a civil war was tearing apart Yugoslavia, while South Africans were working to rebuild their country after decades of apartheid. I had and still have the deepest admiration for Mandela and even went to Cape Town for a short visit at the time. Finally, I was drawn back to English and American history at the Université Versailles Saint-Quentin where I taught the history of the British Isles (or should we call it the “Atlantic archipelago” to please our Irish friends?). So, the idea of a new history of the American Revolution for a French public was regarded as a profitable investment by my publisher, who long ago convinced me that time is money. This was not my initial idea though. I intended to write a biography of Benjamin Franklin, the most popular American in eighteenth-century France. But my publisher suggested that I expand the scope of my study, which I did. GP: The years 2002-2003 saw French and American relations deteriorate dramatically. What was it like to be a French historian of the United States then? BC: It was difficult. I was then working on a project with Dale Van Kley and other American colleagues in Ohio, but it aborted because of the Iraq war, though we managed in due time to publish two collections of essays. I took this as a personal failure. Our idea was to study American and French patriotism in a comparative perspective. By some coincidence, my Révolution américaine opens on a discussion of France and American rivalries, which are rooted in their very revolutions (Cottret, 2003, 10-11).